Barack Obama was reportedly not pleased with Nancy Pelosi’s swift endorsement of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election following Joe Biden’s withdrawal.
Concerns regarding Biden’s health led the former president to step down from the race against Donald Trump last year, subsequently endorsing the then-Vice President Kamala Harris for the presidency.
Biden expressed his support, stating: “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”
Pelosi, who previously served as the Speaker of the House of Representatives and is a key figure in the Democratic Party, promptly endorsed Harris, expressing her ‘full confidence’ in Harris’s ability to defeat Trump.
While Obama eventually supported Harris’s presidential bid, reports suggested that he initially desired a thorough process for selecting Biden’s successor.
In Jonathan Karl’s new book, “Retribution,” he asserts that the ‘Obamas were not happy’ with Pelosi’s rapid endorsement of Harris, with a confidant to Pelosi summarizing ‘Obama’s message to Pelosi as, essentially, ‘What the f–k did you just do?’
Karl wrote that both Obama and Pelosi believed ‘Harris should not simply be handed the nomination unchallenged.’ He added: “Therefore, Obama and Pelosi — arguably the two most influential figures in the Democratic Party — had privately agreed to abstain from making any endorsements.”
Despite their apparent disagreement, a source close to Obama described the conversation between Obama and Pelosi as ‘good-natured ribbing,’ rather than a heated argument, as explained by Karl.
In his book, Karl further elaborated: “The former president wanted to know what had happened. Why had Pelosi issued a statement endorsing Harris so soon? Hadn’t he and Pelosi agreed days earlier that party leaders anointing the vice president as Biden’s replacement would be a mistake?”
As prominent Democrats such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and California Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly threw their support behind Harris, Karl highlighted that Pelosi ‘had no choice’ but to publicly endorse the then-vice president.
“No other candidates had stepped forward — Kamala Harris was it. The only thing Pelosi could do was try to help her win the election,” Karl noted in the book, with excerpts obtained by the Daily Mail.